Sunday, August 24, 2014
Irony
As I do more and more research into the Prague Springs incident, I can't help but notice something kinda funny in my eyes. In Prague, progressivism is viewed as trying to create a more democratic society with more capitalist influences to help the economy. Meanwhile in the western world on the other side of the iron curtain, progressivism is viewed as leaning towards more socialistic policies. So my question is which policies are actually progressive? Is it a middle ground - a balance between the two theories of economy? Is there a third undiscovered theory that will arise? Or are we simply blindly following trends that will benefit us the most as they come and go as we fall into mob mentality? What do y'all think?
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2 comments:
I also noticed how the ideals of a better society seemed to differ in Czechoslovakia and the United States. While reading about Samizdat, I read about a man who met two "hippies," one Czech, the other American. Dissenters in Czech were called hippies because the let their hair grow long in protest of the low tolerance totalitarian regime. Anyway, the man asked the American hippie if he supported their efforts in ridding their country of the harsh communist control. The American hippie replied that he did not support them and that he came to Czechoslovakia in order to escape the government in the United States. When the man told the Czech hippie about this incident, the Czech laughed and said, "he must have never experienced true communism" or the iron curtain. So, to answer your question, a progressive policy must be determined by its people, and will inevitably become replaced after it becomes outdated. Humans are never truly satisfied with what they have, and will always want something different.
I feel that the most progressive economy is definitely somewhere in the middle, but where that middle is remains ambiguous to me. Not all communists or democrats believe the same thing, so we can't necessarily say that communism is the best or that democracy is better. It's great that we have much freedom when it comes to our economy, but the government definitely needs to take some control with the government. I wish Kundera would've talked a little more about the economy of the times in Czech.
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